Gandhian Programme and Indian Labour Movement

Nationalism in India

• Modern nationalism in India is associated with the anti-colonial movement.
• The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a shared bond that tied many different groups together.

The Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements

• The movement began in the 1920s and sought to develop the national movement.
• The Congress, under Mahatma Gandhi, tried to forge different social groups together within one movement.

The First World War, Khilafat, and Non-Cooperation

• The war led to a huge increase in defense expenditure, financed by war loans and increasing taxes.
• Prices doubled between 1913 and 1918, leading to extreme hardship for the common people.
• Villages were called upon to supply soldiers, and forced recruitment in rural areas caused widespread anger.
• The influenza epidemic of 1918-19 and 1920-21 led to acute shortages of food, resulting in 12-13 million deaths.

The Idea of Satyagraha

• Mahatma Gandhi introduced the idea of satyagraha, emphasizing the power of truth and non-violence.
• Satyagraha suggested that if the cause was true, physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor.
• Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

The Rowlatt Act

• The Rowlatt Act was passed in 1919, giving the government enormous powers to repress political activities.
• Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against the act, which started with a hartal on 6 April 1919.

Jallianwalla Bagh Incident

• On 13 April 1919, General Dyer opened fire on a crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh, killing hundreds.
• The event sparked widespread protests and strikes across north India.

Non-Cooperation Movement

• Mahatma Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, with the goal of bringing Hindus and Muslims together.
• The movement began with the surrender of titles, boycott of civil services, army, police, courts, and legislative councils, and schools, and foreign goods.

Different Strands within the Movement

• The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities.
• Students left government-controlled schools, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices.
• The effects of non-cooperation on the economic front were dramatic, with the boycott of foreign goods and the burning of foreign cloth.
• Merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade.
• Production of Indian textile mills and handlooms increased as the boycott movement spread.

Challenges and Limitations

• The movement in the cities slowed down due to the high cost of khadi cloth and the difficulty of boycotting mill cloth.

• The boycott of British institutions posed a problem, as alternative Indian institutions were slow to come up.### Non-Cooperation Movement and the Countryside

• The Non-Cooperation Movement spread from cities to the countryside, drawing in peasant and tribal struggles.

• In Awadh, peasants led by Baba Ramchandra fought against talukdars and landlords, demanding reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social boycott of oppressive landlords.

• Peasants were forced to do begar (labour without payment) and work on landlords' farms without payment.

• In many places, nai-dhobi bandhs (barber-washerman boycotts) were organized to deprive landlords of services.

Awadh Peasant Struggle

• Jawaharlal Nehru began organizing villagers in Awadh, talking to them and understanding their grievances.
• By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up with over 300 branches in the region.
• The peasant movement developed in ways that the Congress leadership was unhappy with, including attacks on talukdars and merchants, looting of bazaars, and takeover of grain hoards.

Tribal Peasants and Swaraj

• Tribal peasants in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh interpreted the message of Mahatma Gandhi and swaraj in their own way.
• They were led by Alluri Sitaram Raju, who claimed to have special powers and believed that India could be liberated only by the use of force.
• The rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials, and carried out guerrilla warfare.

Plantation Workers and Swaraj

• Plantation workers in Assam saw swaraj as the right to move freely and retain links with their villages.
• When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied authorities and left the plantations, but were caught and brutally beaten by the police.

Visions of Swaraj

• The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme, but imagined as a time when all suffering would be over.
• Despite their differences, the movements identified with the all-India agitation and the Congress.

Towards Civil Disobedience

• In 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement, feeling that it was turning violent.
• Some leaders, like C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru, wanted to participate in council politics, while others, like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, pressed for more radical mass agitation.

The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement

• Mahatma Gandhi found a powerful symbol in salt, which could unite the nation.
• He sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin with 11 demands, including the abolition of the salt tax.
• When the demands were not met, Gandhi started the Salt March, accompanied by 78 volunteers, from Sabarmati to Dandi.
• The march marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement, where people were asked to break colonial laws and defy the British.

Impact of the Salt March

• Thousands broke the salt law, manufactured salt, and demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
• Foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed.
• Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, and village officials resigned.
• Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting Congress leaders, leading to violent clashes.

The Gandhi-Irwin Pact

• Mahatma Gandhi decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin on 5 March 1931.

• Gandhiji agreed to participate in a Round Table Conference in London, and the government agreed to release political prisoners.### The Civil Disobedience Movement

• The Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) was founded in 1928 at Ferozeshah Kotla ground in Delhi.

• Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1929, which continued for over a year but lost momentum by 1934.

• The HSRA targeted symbols of British power, including the Legislative Assembly and Lord Irwin's train.

Participants in the Civil Disobedience Movement

• Rich peasant communities, such as the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh, participated in the movement due to the trade depression and falling prices.
• They were enthusiastic supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement, but were disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without the revenue rates being revised.
• Poorer peasants were interested in the lowering of revenue demands and the remittance of unpaid rent to landlords.
• They joined radical movements, often led by Socialists and Communists, which made the Congress apprehensive of raising issues that might upset rich peasants and landlords.
• Business classes, including merchants and industrialists, supported the Civil Disobedience Movement, seeking protection against imports and a favorable rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio.
• They formed organizations like the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) to promote their interests.
• Industrial working classes did not participate in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region, but some workers did selectively adopt Gandhian ideas like boycott of foreign goods.
• Women participated in the movement, including in protest marches, manufacturing salt, and picketing foreign cloth and liquor shops.
• Many women went to jail, and their participation was seen as a sacred duty to the nation.

The Limits of Civil Disobedience

• Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj.
• The nation's 'untouchables', or dalits, who began to call themselves dalit or oppressed from the 1930s, were not fully involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated.
• Dalit leaders, like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, organized the dalits into the Depressed Classes Association and demanded reserved seats in educational institutions and a separate electorate.
• The Poona Pact of 1932 gave the Depressed Classes reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils, but they were to be voted in by the general electorate.
• Some Muslim political organizations were lukewarm in their response to the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• The Congress came to be associated with openly Hindu religious nationalist groups, leading to a worsening of Hindu-Muslim relations.
• Muslim leaders, like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, were willing to give up the demand for separate electorates if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to population in Muslim-dominated provinces.
• Sir Muhammad Iqbal reiterated the importance of separate electorates for Muslims as an important safeguard for their minority political interests in 1930.

This quiz explores the connection between Gandhian principles and the Indian labour movement, including strikes and protests against poor working conditions.